Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made a surprise trip to Florida late Saturday night to meet with Donald Trump, as Europe’s most important leader sought to cement ties with the president-elect ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort greeted Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared by reporters and others on social media.

“This is very exciting. “I’m here with a fantastic woman, the Prime Minister of Italy,” Trump told the crowd at Mar-a-Lago, according to a Media Pool report. “She has really taken Europe by storm.”

Meloni is seen as a potentially strong partner for Trump due to her conservative stance and the stability of the right-wing coalition that she has led in Italy since the end of 2022.

She has also developed a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help him win the election.

Tommaso Foti, Italy’s minister for EU and regional affairs, said on Sunday that the meeting, which was not announced in advance, showed that Italy could act as a “diplomatic bridge between two worlds: the European Union and the United States.”

Her trip comes days before she meets with President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to January 12.

Although details of their meeting were not disclosed, Meloni had planned to speak with Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist imprisoned in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

Although details of their meeting were not disclosed, Meloni had planned to speak with Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist imprisoned in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

Trump and Meloni watched a screening of a documentary that questioned the criminal investigation and legal scrutiny of John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who played a central role in Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss .

One of Meloni’s biggest challenges is the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala on December 19 in Iran.

Sala was arrested three days after the arrest of Mohammad Abedini, an Iranian businessman, at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan were killed. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

Meloni was the latest of a handful of foreign leaders to visit Trump in Florida since the Nov. 5 election. He met with Argentine President Javier Milei, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.